I still remember the first time we gave Bowpi a hunk of raw turkey neck. She sure enjoyed it, but regurgitated it 15 minutes later. Perhaps she consumed it too quickly, or was just not accustomed to digesting uncooked meat.
21 January 2012
Despite this failure, we persisted with our culinary trials, since she seemed enthusiastic enough about this process of eating something that actually takes a bit of work. We refrained from giving her thicker bones and heavier cuts while she developed her chewing technique and habits. After much practice with various chicken parts, she now takes to most poultry pieces with gusto.
Our delicate little Basenji flower sure can crunch a mean bone! Raw fish is another favorite. She usually rejects anything with hooves though — beef, lamb, and pork get pulled out of her bowl, plopped onto the towel, sniffed with disdain, then abandoned. Bowdu, who will eat pretty much anything, gets whatever she rejects the next day.
Every now and then, her stomach gets a little unsettled, and she’ll suffer a bout of early morning nausea. She puked bile nearly every morning when she first arrived, a problem which we eventually remedied over the course of a month or so by offering a snack right before bedtime and getting her accustomed to just one kind of higher quality, grain-free kibble than what she was eating before.
Even though I don’t intend to ever bear children, I’m kind of amused that my “maternal” reflexes are such that I can snap awake even from deep slumber at the first sound of her retching and get a paper towel or something under her in time to catch her vomit before any major damage is done. I also recognize a very distinctive facial expression, which I describe as the “Lisa Simpson” look, just before she lets it all go.
There was one time I failed to catch her vomit — I haven’t been able to forget. Both Bows had just finished up a meal of a raw chicken leg quarter. This monstrous chunk, including a segment of spine, was noticeably fattier than their usual fare. I tried to hack it up a bit, but I probably overfed Bowpi that evening. And on this particular night, ‘Pi had managed to burrow her way deep under the covers so that she was trapped in the middle of the bed when I first heard her muffled horks and felt her writhing against my thigh, as her stomach pumped and revved up for launch.
This graphic has been circulating amongst my baby-bearing friends on Facebook. I can't help but see Bowpi in place of the infant.
Charlie Capen and Andy Herald, “Baby Sleep Positions” from How to Be a Dad
Before I had a chance to move the covers, our little “Snow Angel” had deposited a putrid, chunky pile of undigested carrion onto the center of the bed. Panicked and still groggy from this most unwelcome awakening, I wondered which end it came out of. I propped my hand against RJ’s back, jolting him awake, and coolly instructed him, “Something really bad just happened. DO NOT roll over, DO NOT MOVE, or it’s going to be worse.”
He laid there steeped in the miasma and paralyzed by the nightmare that he had just shit himself in his sleep, as he later confessed, while I quickly fetched some paper towels and disposed of the bulk of the mess.
So at four in the morning, we had ourselves an emergency clean-up and laundering session, then moved to the futon in my study den for the remainder of our interrupted sleep.
I’m certain that the stench of Bowpi’s vomit wouldn’t have been nearly as bad had she just eaten kibble that night. And unlike her first turkey neck, which hadn’t sat in her stomach long enough for any real digestion to occur, this one was crawling with all kinds of nasty gut flora that had, quite literally, revolted against their job.
A lesson learned: the risk of horrendously rotten vomit is certainly one drawback seldom mentioned by rave reviewers of raw feeding. I have smelled very few things as nasty as what I smelled that night… not even the corpse flower was as bad as waking up to that.
Ooh that sounds… exciting, in a totally non fun way. I seem to be lacking in the “mothering” instincts since any dog who shows signs of vomiting gets shoved off the bed/carpet/out the door rather hastily. I think that’s more of a “Not on my bed you won’t!” Reaction than anything.
Conker’s only had one bad instance of this. The bile vomits were frequent when he began to eat raw food but now he never has them anymore. Anyways, this particular event happened after he’d eaten 1/4 of a box of NASTY old dog biscuits, the kind I wouldn’t buy even if they were the only type available. Conker didn’t feel so hot after that was was crated where he deposited several large piles of mushy biscuit.
He was feeling much better after he’d cleared himself of them that I figured he could eat some dinner several hours later around 8pm. He was fine, and we went to sleep.
Bad idea. At 4 in the morning I woke up to that sound and flung Conker off my bed (which at that time was just a foam pad and some blankets) just in time for him to drop the nastiest thing I have ever smelled right where my face would have been if I hadn’t launched him across the room.
Thankfully, that is the only time he has done that. And I now know that if Conker doesn’t feel to hot or barfs up something, wait a day to feed him.
My tugou also regurgitates her raw food, unless it’s frozen. Now she won’t even eat it if it’s not rock-solid.
Once in awhile Mac would throw up as well (most likely not related to raw food), so I can identify with the sound / face they make as well as the sheer panic of grabbing tissue to try to catch the bile before it happens. I also give Mac raw chicken every 2 or 3 days and he seems to love it!
The Midnight Chicken Yak. Alas, I know it (and the accompanying REEK) well. The reek is what husbands are for.
Mmmmm…Nasty raw feeding stories huh?
I gave my Shibas some frozen baby rabbits, which they greedily ate outside. Some time had passed and all seemed well, so I let them, all three, back inside, where they promptly regurgiated thawed infant bunny all over the living room…and RE ATE them. Ewwww!
Mmm… redigested food. Bowdu’s favorite. It reminds him of mom!
RJ would be horrified to find thawed bunny parts on the living room floor. Rabbit meat makes him very sad. There are a couple proteins around here we don’t feed for sentimental reasons, and that’s one of them.
We just started feeding raw and are experiencing the same trials and tribulations as you. Emi is most like Bowpi where she turns her nose up to anything that takes work to ingest. She winds up going back to it and licking it to its second death. Shio is more like Bowdu where he scarfs down anything that can be eaten. Thank goodness he has his limits and does not eat anything that’s not considered consumable.
With our recent furry headcount and dog food change, Josh and I have woken up to many of funky retching sounds in the middle of the night. If he hears it first, he’ll usually fling his arm to my side of the bed and slapping me where ever his arm lands to wake me up. I jump up and transport the heaving pup to a hardwood or tiled area and allow them to vomit. He’s never had the fun pleasure of cleaning it up.
I’m impressed that you’re able to grab paper towels and lay them out before your dogs upchuck! Hilarious story of Pi having a go in the middle of the bed and in the middle of the night.
At least Josh wakes up!! But that’s amusing that he’ll make you do cleanup work instead.
At this home, it would take WAY more effort to wrangle RJ into a state of semi-consciousness than to just clean it up myself… sigh.
Monday morning Josh woke up just in time to hear Emi throw up. He woke me up and grabbed a roll of paper towels for me, then went back to bed. Sigh.